Egos and $

The reason they are sitting on the report is that the egos and gravy trains of important people might be hurt.

The concern is not bad press from the report itself. The concern is the subsequent reaction by the people and organizations it blames.



The "DNC" is often held up as some all-powerful institution. It is not in the way people imagine. But it is the conduit through which money flows - in and, of course, out - and that does matter. A lot.

Greg is saying a lot, but I think you can draw some further implications yourselves.

Take, for instance, the Future Forward super PAC, which had a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars for the 2024 contest. Well before Election Day, the PAC came under harsh criticism from some Democrats who argued that it hadn’t spent sufficient money earlier in the campaign on ads attacking Trump, which may have allowed Trump to rehabilitate himself after his 2020 loss and the January 6 insurrection.

Other Democrats charged that Future Forward’s ad-testing model and addiction to traditional TV ads led to anodyne communications and that its flawed theory of politics caused it to refrain from sufficiently targeting Trump, letting him avoid blame for his first-term disasters on Covid-19 and the economy. Still others said the PAC didn’t innovate in digital communications, failing to reach and motivate young and nonwhite voters who helped tip the election to the president.

There are grounds for thinking the DNC report digs into these problems. According to a DNC official, the analysis found, among other things, that the party didn’t invest sufficiently in innovative digital tools; that its digital ads didn’t reach young voters who no longer engage with broadcast and cable TV; and that Trump—with the help of an ecosystem of right-wing podcasters and influencers—outworked the Democrats in the information wars. Democrats must play catchup in this department, the report found.

Hint:

It’s unclear what the DNC analysis concludes about key decisions made by the Biden campaign’s high command—people like reelection chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and senior adviser Anita Dunn, who is now an adviser to Future Forward—including the decision to stay in the race too long.